This is a strange question that came up while playing the card game UNO. In some versions of the UNO there is a card, in which the player who plays it takes everyone's cards and redistributes them equally among all players. This leads to everyone having an equal number of cards, with some situations in which the player redistributing the cards has less cards (e.g. a 2 player game with odd cards, player 1 will end up with 1 fewer cards).
In a situation in which you are playing against one other player, you have one card left that happens to be the redistribute card, while you opponent has 10 cards left.
Is it optimal to play the redistribute card straight away or wait until your opponent has fewer cards?
Here is my thinking:
- Playing the card straight away means you both end up with 5 cards each, meaning you have decent odds to have playable cards, which leads to the game being less random.
- If you wait and play the card when your opponent has fewer cards, you increase the odds you don't have playable cards.
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